Jayson Tatum Drops 40 in a Celtics Masterclass – 8 Takeaways from the Blowout Win Over the Knicks!
Tatum moved to No. 9 on the Celtics’ all-time scoring list.
Jayson Tatum dominated the Knicks on Saturday night. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
Jayson Tatum led the Celtics to an eye-opening 131-104 win over the Knicks on Saturday, as they bounced back loudly from a disappointing loss.
Here are the takeaways.
Jayson Tatum had one of those games.
With 2:31 remaining in the third quarter and the Knicks waving their arms trying not to fall over the edge of a cliff, Jayson Tatum backed the ball out behind the 3-point line with Mikal Bridges defending him. The shot clock wound down, and Tatum took one dribble followed by an enormous side step to his right, which created plenty of space between himself and Bridges. He launched a 29-foot triple, which caught nothing but net and elicited one of the more despairing noises you will hear all season from the Madison Square Garden crowd.
There was plenty of time left in the game, but Tatum’s three felt very much like a dagger – the Knicks had walked a lead that ballooned as high as 18 in the first half all the way down to three in the third quarter before a series of triples by the Celtics helped push the advantage back up to 16. Tatum played a huge role – he scored 19 points in the third quarter alone, part of a 40-point statline (13-for-26, 7-for-14 from three, six rebounds, four assists) that would have been gaudier if Payton Pritchard hadn’t ground his heel into the Knicks in the fourth after Tatum checked out, ending Tatum’s evening prematurely.
Tatum was brilliant on Saturday – the kind of game that he plays every so often during a season that gives Celtics fans the ammunition they need to counter any argument made against him online. He opened the proceedings by rooting Karl-Anthony Towns to the floor with an in-and-out dribble and a monstrous two-handed slam over Precious Achiuwa on Boston’s first basket of the game. A few minutes later, he made Achiuwa do a stumbling two-step back into the paint with a cross behind his back before burying a 3-pointer.
Spike Lee had the audacity to bark something at Tatum in the third, so Tatum hit several shots in a row and barked something back. And in the fourth quarter, Tatum scored five more points to ice things before taking a seat.
“He was ready to play, and that was special,” Mazzulla said. “I just thought he did a great job of taking what the defense gave him, whether it was for him or his teammates.
“But his ability to play vs. different coverages throughout the game, get the shot that he wanted and play with a sense of poise, that was a special performance.”
Generally, teams force the ball out of Tatum’s hands, and he gives it up happily enough – content to let his highly talented teammates feast off the 2-on-1s created by his gravity.
On Saturday, Tatum had a chance to remind a packed Madison Square Garden – as well as a national TV audience watching on ABC – why all of those teams would rather double him than let him cook: He is a punishingly great player who is great both because of his ability to let the game develop around him and to demolish teams when they give him the chance.
“It’s always about making the right read,” Tatum said. “If it’s shooting the ball five times in a row, that’s what it’s got to be. If it’s hitting one of the bigs in the seam, if it’s hitting D-White in the dunker, or if the nail is helping, hit the guy in the corner or whatever, that’s what it has to be. So just living in that space, regardless of where you at, who you’re playing against. It’s not like I’m trying to prove anything out there. I’m just playing the game the right way.”
Tatum hit a new milestone.
Tatum moved into the Celtics’ top 10 scorers of all time, finishing the evening with 13,193 points to surpass both Dave Cowens and Jo Jo White.
Next up? Bill Russell at No. 8 with 14,522.
“I’m really grateful that I get to coach him, so I don’t take that for granted,” Mazzulla said. “But that’s big-time for him. He does it the right way. For him to be able to accomplish that while focused on winning and being a great teammate is really important.
“And I think he’s still underrated. He’s one of the best players out there.”
The Celtics are a really awful matchup for the Knicks.
The Knicks are just 2.5 games behind the Celtics in the standings, but Saturday’s game felt like a statement by the Celtics that the distance between the two teams on the court is far greater.
The Celtics feast on teams that have offensive juggernaut players who are also defensive liabilities, especially when those players are either A) undersized guards or B) slow-footed bigs, and especially when those undersized guards and/or slow-footed bigs are key parts of the team who can’t be easily subbed out.
The Knicks have two such players, and against the Celtics, that might simply not be tenable.
Jalen Brunson kept the Knicks alive in the first half and deep into the third quarter with his offensive brilliance. While he’s as grifty as a player can get, drawing fouls with a wide array of pump fakes and leaning jumpers, he’s also an incredibly talented scorer and pick-and-roll operator.
Towns, the Knicks’ new offseason acquisition, is the prototypical modern offensive big man – equally a threat to hit threes, put the ball on the floor and post up effectively.
But the Celtics’ secret sauce has a lot of flavors, and a big part of it is that all of their talented offensive players can also defend really well. Together, Brunson and Towns give the Celtics high-value targets on any given possession in the pick-and-roll, and the Celtics’ defenders hold up well enough against them to prevent their offense from making up the difference.
Brunson – whose evening was very well summarized by his stat line of 36 points on 10-for-18 shooting, 13 free throws and a -19 in the box score – kept the Knicks alive in the first half and the third quarter, but the Knicks simply didn’t have enough for Tatum’s onslaught.
Towns, meanwhile, finished with just nine points – his first time this season failing to reach double figures.
“You tally up all the ways that they are able to score, and you take a few of those away,” Mazzulla said. “We didn’t do a great job at the free throw line – we have to do a better job of defending without fouling. But we were able to just take away a lot of the stuff that they get through some of the details, and the positioning and the details were on point.”
Payton Pritchard slammed the door.
If Tatum had the Knicks waving their arms at the edge of the cliff, Pritchard spin-kicked them over it.
Pritchard scored 15 of his 25 points in the fourth quarter, burying three of his six triples in the final frame. As he put the Knicks away, Tatum roared from the bench – evidently more than content to sit tight on 40 points and watch Pritchard handle the rest.
Pritchard finished 9-for-13 from the floor with four rebounds, four assists and one “too small” celebration against Josh Hart.
“For me, it’s just about making the right reads every time,” Pritchard said. “I had two shots in a row I hit. The next two plays, I hit Luke. And it’s just making the right read. That’s how I judge my game. It’s not makes or misses or anything, it’s making the right reads, and I thought I did a good job of that.”
Luke Kornet was cooking.
Let chef Luke Kornet do your cooking this evening, and you won’t even have to wash the dishes.
Starting in place of Kristaps Porzingis, who was a late scratch due to illness, Kornet finished a perfect 7-for-7 from the field with 14 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks. The Celtics started with Kornet and Al Horford on the floor in a double big lineup, and – not for the first time this season – Kornet gave them really excellent minutes in a starting role.
“To me, it’s more about just having different ways that you can play,” Mazzulla said. “The season presents opportunities for that, and we need to be able to be flexible to be able to win the matchup at that particular time.
“I thought tonight, that won the matchup for us. New York is one of the most physical teams in the league. They do a great job on both ends of the glass, and we were able to counteract that a little bit with our physicality. So it’s a credit to the guys for playing as hard as they did, especially defensively, they were really well connected.”
“Big Luke played his ass off today,” Tatum added. “He kind of really set the tone to start.”
The imperfect-but-useful Neemias Queta
Nobody would accuse Neemias Queta of being a flawless basketball player – he finds himself in too many uncomfortable defensive positions, he swipes too often at defenders who already had him beat, and he can be prone to turnovers.
But Queta is also just so long and athletic that he can often be a positive player despite the flaws. On Saturday, Queta (11 points, 4-for-7 shooting, eight rebounds) did a lot of little things to boost the Celtics. He set good screens, and he made the most of the ensuing rolls to the rim. He gobbled up rebounds. He made most of his free throws. He was a deterrent at the rim, and he held up relatively well even He even knocked down a tough jump hook in the paint in the fourth.
Queta hasn’t always had consistent minutes this year, but with Porzingis sidelined, he filled in nicely. That’s the power of a deep bench full of acceptable role players – they won’t be perfect, but they can give you what you need on a short-handed evening in February.
Playing in New York
The Celtics weren’t shy about what it meant to play in New York.
“I saw Denzel Washington sitting court side, so I was excited about that,” Tatum said with a small smile.
Tatum added that while Boston is the best place to play in the NBA, New York is “probably’ second.
“They got all the celebrities, but they’ve also got that edge about them,” Tatum said. “They know basketball, they’re passionate, they’re chanting and cheering the whole time, so it is a special place to play.”
Pritchard, an Oregon native, noted that he hadn’t been at a game at Madison Square Garden before he was in the NBA.
“You dream of moments like this, and to come here and play, and the intensity of this game, it was definitely a dream to play here,” he said.
Even Mazzulla, who rarely admits these types of things, conceded that the moment felt large.
“I think once you get out there and you feel the energy of the Garden, and you feel the energy of the two teams, once you get out there, it’s obviously a game the guys wanted, and it should be that way,” he said. “At the same time, we have to do the same thing 36 hours from now, but it was a great environment, and I thought the guys kind of relished in that and stuck together.”
Two more games, then the break.
The Celtics have just two more games until the All-Star break. On Monday, they take on the Heat in Miami at 7:30 p.m. before returning home for a game against the newly improved Spurs with Victor Wembanyama and De’Aaron Fox on Wednesday before the NBA takes a week off.
